Defending Serenty (4 page)

At the end of the dock I blink, not
registering what I see as I fight the churning in my belly. Trace’s
hand settles on the small of my back, and although he doesn’t say a
word, I feel...comforted. Focusing, I count at least three sets of
muddy boot prints. I’ll have to run back to the house and get my
camera. Damn. I always carry the small digital gadget in my pocket.
Trace is distracting me.

The sky chooses that moment to open up, a
freezing deluge falling on us, and cursing my luck I turn and run.
I hear Trace’s footsteps pounding behind me.

Trace

All I’ve done for the last ten years is read
and workout. I could pass her without breaking a sweat, but the
view of her from behind is irresistible. The rain molds her jeans
to her thighs like a second skin and the wet denim is almost as
sexy as nothing at all. I admire the sleek action of her muscles as
her legs pump, and when we gain her back porch I notice she isn’t
breathing hard either. Reaching around her, I grip the doorknob and
twist it, crowding through the door behind her.

She sits down at the kitchen table and tugs
at her bootlaces while I toe off my shoes and strip off the rest of
my soaking clothes. If we stay cold and wet, hypothermia could set
in quickly. I lean against the counter and watch her struggle with
her laces until shivers rack her body. Naked, I kneel before her
and push her hands away, attacking the wet laces with a steak
knife. Then I stand us both up and yank the sweater over her head.
She reaches for her jeans, but she’s trembling so much her hands
can’t grip the zipper. I shove them away and peel them off,
dropping them in the pile of sodden clothes on the floor and
carrying her into the bedroom.

I lay down with her, wrapping us both in the
quilt and rubbing my hands up and down her back trying to pass on
some of my body heat. She tries to pull away, but I hold her tight.
She is not warming as fast I’d like, but the shudders have slowed
enough so that she can speak without chattering.

“I have to get up, Trace.”

My arms flinch around her.

“I’m okay,” she says. “I have to go back out
and look around. You can put your clothes in the dryer while I’m
gone,” she adds, wiggling free.

She is already hopping into a dry pair of
jeans before I can react. She’s just going to blow me off and rush
back out into the downpour to see who’s hanging out on an old
lady’s dock? Anger straightens my spine and my hands fist. Ten
years of repressed rage boil to the surface and I struggle to force
it down.

Looking up, she meets my gaze and
freezes.

After a moment she shakes it off, finishes
dressing, and digs around in the closet pulling out a long yellow
rain slicker with POLICE emblazoned across the back. I stalk after
her and in the kitchen pick up my wet jeans, then drop them in
disgust. There is no way they are going back on. Well, she has to
come back here, doesn’t she? I’ll be waiting.

“Um, Trace,” she starts.

I look up to see her shifting on her feet,
her head is cocked to one side, studying me. She probably thinks
I’ve lost my mind. Not that I care.

“Are you okay?”

My throat tightens. Damn it, I won’t care. I
nod. She sighs with a slight shake of her head, obviously not
buying it.

“The dryer’s in there.” She points to a set
of double doors near the refrigerator. “I won’t be long.”

A gust of wind and rain blow in when she
steps outside, and with a small wave she is gone. I want to pace
and rant, but years of confinement have instilled in me the economy
of motion. Never take four steps when two will work. Never raise
your voice. Never show anger. Never feel
anything
. It is all
about survival. My survival. And the woman who has to pay for my
lost years.

My stomach growls, and emotion hits me like a
punch in the gut. Sagging into an uncomfortable wooden chair, I
take a good look around. I’m sitting in Serenity Jameson’s kitchen
in my underwear and it isn’t a dream. I am free. I close my eyes
and take a deep breath. How many moments will I have like this?
When I realize I can move around without bumping into walls, or
yell and scream, or fuck the woman that drives me out of my
mind?

My belly rumbles again and I walk to her
fridge. I can have a snack in the middle of the night. I open the
door and arch an eyebrow. No wonder she is so thin. She has no
food. There are some leftovers that look like science experiments
gone wrong, a twelve pack of Diet Coke, an open bottle of wine,
condiments, and buried in the back, an unopened package of sandwich
meat and a couple of slices of cheese. I bring them and the mustard
out and examine a loaf of bread lying on the counter. It doesn’t
look bad, so I slap a sandwich together and clean up.

The phone rings while I’m setting the dryer.
Turning, I see the wireless unit hanging on the wall. I shouldn’t
answer it. Who would call this late except work or Monroe? My eyes
narrow. The hell with her reputation.

“Hello?”

I grin at the string of inventive cussing
that meets my ear.

“What the fuck, Trace? Haven’t you had enough
trouble in your life?”

I laugh. “I’m not having a lot of trouble
right now, baby brother.”

“Shit.”

I laugh again.

“What’s up, Walker?” I squint at the oven
clock. “Why are you calling here at three twenty in the
morning?”

He sighs. “Let me talk to Lynn. There’s
something going on out on the river again.”

“She isn’t here. Old lady Baker called her
out about noise on her dock, so we walked over to have a look. Got
drenched, came back here, she changed and went back out.”

I wait out the silence from the other
end.

“She’s out there by herself?” Walker finally
asks.

What the fuck?

“Is there a reason she shouldn’t be? Are we
babysitting cops now?” I ask sarcastically.

Again my brother hesitates, and when Walker
answers fear snakes up my spine.

“Maybe,” Walker answers slowly.

Blinking into the darkness, I rub my hand
over my face. Need to take a razor to the stubble later. I snort.
The things you thought about when worry came into play. I haven’t
worried about anybody but myself or my brother since...no, I’m not
going there.

“What’s going on, Walker?”

“She’s not sure.” I can hear the shrug in my
brother’s voice. “My bet would be smugglers. The Gulf isn’t far
downstream and Madison is a small town. Not much police
activity.”

Smugglers. Just great. Probably drug
dealers.

“You don’t know?”

“That’s not our thing, man.”

He’s right. Neither of us were ever into
drugs. We’ve watched them destroy too many people. Hunter also
refuses to work with anyone who deals or uses. If it is drug
smugglers she’s in a world of trouble and it’s not my people so I
can’t help her. Can she handle it? Walker reads my mind.

“She was a detective in Birmingham before she
came back here. A narc. I’m sure she knows what she’s doing.”

I smile. Walker is trying to reassure me. How
have we ended up so wrapped up in the life of a cop when I haven’t
even been around? The cop who’d landed me in prison, no less. It’s
too damned weird. Of course, I had to go straight after her when I
got out. Predictable. I blink. Yes, I’d done the expected thing.
And what else would people anticipate from me? Maybe I can help
her. Find the local action, and how grateful would she be? Hunter
would have my ass for getting involved with drug running, but it
didn’t have to go that far. I just want information.

With the rain still driving into the roof, I
sense more than hear a movement in the back yard. Saying goodbye to
my brother, I assure him I’ll watch my back but I refuse to make
any promises about Serenity. I’m sitting facing the door when she
comes in, shaking off rain. She looks over at me and scowls.

“Still here, huh?”

She hangs the poncho on a hook by the door
and sits down at the table. I sense her withdrawal, and where
before it would have pissed me off, now I consider it a challenge.
Her expression is closed as she bends to pull off her boots.

“Clothes not dry yet?”

“Nope,” I answer, leaning back in the chair.
She tenses even more at my casual
I-belong-in-this-kitchen
pose. Her eyes narrow.

“Don’t get too comfortable,” she says.

A slow smile spreads across my face.

“Do you ever wonder where you’d be if that
night hadn’t happened? If Billy Thompson hadn’t died?”

I hit pay dirt. She pales. Standing, I round
the table and pull her hard against me.

“I’ve had ten years to wonder,” I whisper.
“And the only answer I’ve ever come up with is inside you.”

She takes a deep breath and her chest rises.
I can’t help a look down her shirt. She is a nice round C-cup, I
guess. She hadn’t bothered with a bra before rushing back out and
her pink areolas call out to me. I trail a fingertip along the edge
of her top, just grazing her skin, and smile when goose bumps rise
in its wake.

“You’ve thought about it, too,” I say.

“No,” she says huskily, shaking her head. “I
got on with my life.”

I might have bought that if her nipples
hadn’t gone hard under my palm. I add a gentle squeeze, and she
groans and arches into me. Giving into the temptation, I slide my
other hand down her back and cup her ass. I want there too, and
soon. But for now I’ll settle for some kind of regular arrangement.
One that involves fucking her every way I can think of for the next
week.

She shivers and I notice how cool her skin is
under the sweater. I would have noticed earlier if she didn’t
distract me so much. Lifting her up, I carry her to the bath I
interrupted when she’d first come home. I sit her on the toilet
seat, turn on the shower, and watch her pull off her clothes. Her
skin is pimpled from the cold and I resist self-recrimination. I’m
not her keeper, but maybe I shouldn’t have let her leave the second
time, or should have at least made her warm up right away when she
came back. Struggling to repress my reaction to her condition, I
deal with my own garments and step under the hot spray.

She hesitates before joining me and years of
patient waiting keep me from growling at the delay. I want her
now
. Stepping under the water, she tilts her face up,
unashamed, and lets it sluice over her. My cock does the impossible
and gets even harder. Her back is to me and I move in behind her,
letting my dick bump her ass. She sways against me and I moan.

Sliding my arms around her, I palm one breast
while my fingers delve through the curls hiding her cunt. With a
groan she rubs against me, and her nipple pebbles under my hand. I
give it a gentle twist and am rewarded by her cream coating my
fingers. Lifting them to my lips, I suck one into my mouth. I love
her taste. I want more. Stepping away I position her with her back
against the stall’s slick wall. Her eyelids droop, and she mutters
a protest. I kneel in front her, put my hands on her ankles, and
slid them up to her thighs, nudging them apart when I reach her
pussy.

She glistens with water and her juices, and I
lean forward to lap at her in one long swipe. Groaning, she spreads
her arms across the wall for support and tilts her hips toward my
face. I grin. She may not like it, but her body is mine. The
chemistry between us has survived the years and has grown even
hotter. Returning to my task, I spread her lips with the fingers of
one hand and thrust two from the other deep inside her. I find her
clit and she squirms under my soft bite.

I flick my tongue over it and thrust my
fingers in and out of her in a lazy rhythm. Moaning, she grinds her
body against my mouth, and her thighs tremble around my face.
Incredible. She is coming already. I suck on her clit and she
explodes, cream coating my tongue and shudders racking her body.
God, I’m so turned on I might come before I get inside her.

I reach over the edge of the tub for the foil
packet I’d dropped and rip it open. Sitting back on my thighs, I
roll the condom on and pull her down on my straining cock. I won’t
last long. She is so tight around me. It completely meshes with my
memory of her, the fit of her, that when I lean my head back and
close my eyes, the fantasy that she’d been waiting for me when I’d
walked out through those gates comes to life.

I lift her with ease, plunging in and out of
her, grinding against her clit. She clamps down around me and keens
with a second orgasm. I come in a rush, out of nowhere, the push
over the edge from either the sensation or the sound of her coming,
I’m not sure which. But I am sure of one thing--that it is
incredible and I want to do it over and over again.

Serenity

I relax against his chest and he draws slow
circles on my back. My breathing grows even while we sit on the
floor of the shower. I doze and he lets me, until the water runs
ice cold. Then he nudges me awake and sets me aside to turn off the
faucet before wrapping me in a towel and leading me into the
bedroom.

I dry off, using the towel to squeeze water
from my hair before diving under the blankets. I’ve lost my damned
mind--it is the only explanation for what is going on here.
Whatever that is. Who am I kidding? I know exactly what’s
happening.

Sex. Just really awesome, screaming good
sex.

That is all it is. That little hitch in my
chest when Trace struts around the bed like he belongs here doesn’t
mean a damned thing. Appreciation for a good-looking guy. That’s
it. Yeah, right. God, I’m in trouble. One day? He’s been back one
day and I’m going moon-eyed? I roll over and squeeze my eyes
closed, knowing I should kick him out, but unwilling to call an end
to the night.

I dreamed about him for years, compared other
men--decent, law-abiding men--to him for years. It’s normal to want
to explore that old attraction, right? One night, then he is off
limits forever. Madison has a long memory. I was lucky to get the
detective offer and I’m not going to screw up my career over what
amounts to a girlhood crush. Never mind that it’s a career I’m
thinking about getting out of. Besides, Trace might be great in the
sack, but he is emotionally unavailable. I went to him before he
stood trial and he’d been clear in his rebuff--he didn’t want to
see me or hear from me.